Trusted Reviews Gadget Of The Year

For gadget lovers, 2011 will go down as the year of the tablet. But which big brand took out gadget of the year according to TrustedReviews?

Beating the MacBook Pro 15inch in the laptop category and the iPad2 in the tablet category, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer took out the top prize, beating the hugely popular Apple iPad2.

Hear that sound? Apple fanboys everywhere suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

TrustedReviews editor Cliff Jones said: "We felt that the Transformer deserved to win in both categories due to its clever design, build quality,versatility and excellent value. It impressed our judges who had no hesitation in naming it Product Of The Year 2011."

The Asus features a keyboard that fixes to the tablet for easy typing and the 16Gb 10 inch option is £299 at high street stores like Comet, compared to £399 for the iPad.

The final judgment on the year's top gizmo was a collaboration between readers and judges.

Shortlists for 14 categories including best mobile phone, digital camera and 3D TV were chosen by Trusted Reviews' readers.

Their choices were then reviewed by a panel of judges including your author, TrustedReviews own reviewers and technology editors from The Daily Telegraph, MSN UK, Recombu and Absolute Gadget.

TrustedReviews readers made the judges job particularly hard, with brilliant gadgets in all categories. The competition for the top spot was tight, with other must-have gadgets like the new iPhone4s and the retro Fuji Finepix F100 in the finals.

Many Percy Pigs were sacrificed as judges whittled each list down to just one gadget at the former NME radio studios.

Best mobile phone of the year went to the Samsung Galaxy S II and the best digital camera went to the Nikon D7000.

Samsung also won in the best 2D TV category with its UE40D5520, and the Panasonic TX-P50G30 took title for best 3D TV.

Jones said value, usability and price mattered to both readers and judges: "While value remains important, high quality and a range of features remained important criteria when picking an overall winner. The results reflect an interesting mix of high-end premium products and affordable consumer technology."